Material Studies?

eCupcakes

Hey guys
I've doing some material studies lately of naturally formed rocks, plants , and moss,  and such.
was wondering if anyone else has any other interesting suggestions for material studies they think really benefited them in terms of learning things like ambient lighting, cast shadows, texture & brushwork
i did think about food or different types of hairs as my next material studies but does anyone else have any other interesting suggestions?

cheers!

PianoPolish

you can try learning by rough and smooth surfaces (glossy). This is base for classify a lot of materials, but of course, there are few exceptions like rubber materials, that can be smoothness but not necessarily have to emit or reflect the light like some glossy materials, cuz rubber materials absorve too much the light.



If you want to apply wet, just add a some kind of shiny pellicle layer to whatever surface you want. For example the asphalt have a rough surface but looks shiny when it gets wet due to water and other components like oil, but still preserve it rough looking surface.




you can also learn the scattering surface effect, its just the light that pass trough some materials like human skin, cloth, vegetation leafs, fur, hair and other amorphous materials like glass or ice. This is a beautiful effect but don't abuse using it too much, only in specific materials. Here are few examples>>>





about lighting and shadows try learning about global illumination(GI) and ambient occlusion (AO). The GI are the indirect lights that are produced by a main light source. Here is an example>>>




And the AO is the shadow that appear in places where the light can't get through. An example>>>>



remember that the rough and smooth surface its only a base to classify many materials. But they have their own formations and textures, for example the wood and the leather materials could have the same level of roughness/smoothness surface but they looks totally different to each other, so you have to study specifically that.

All this techniques are for 3D rendering but they can be used in 2D too. 

Hope this help you.